February 20, 2007

Does Jim Carrey Totally Add Up?

Jim Carrey, an actor the Cinecultist has enjoyed even when others didn't ie. in Man On The Moon, has a new flick coming out this weekend and is thus on the junket circuit. We caught him this morning on The Today Show clowning around with Matt Lauer during a jeans fit segment and so with chuckling anticipation sat down to listen to his interview with Meredith Vieira about his thriller The Number 23. However, it seems the wacko numerology premise of the movie has over taken Jim's ordinarily entertaining junket banter.

Between the beatific grins at Meredith and the shaggy page boy haircut he's sporting, Carrey seemed a little off kilter from the start. Then he begins spouting about how he's long been influenced by connections in his life to the number 23, even before he received the script to this movie, and proceeded to list for Meredith all of the important relationships in his life connected by 23. Apparently, Jim says it's all about getting reminders of how magical the universe is. If you take the number of letters in his name + his costar Virginia Madsen, it equals 23. Same with Jim and director Joel Schumacher's names. Just in case middle America couldn't keep up with all of this freaky counting, Today then flashed up a graphic of Jim's name plus Meredith's also equaling 23.

Doesn't this all seem a little too kooky Method actor, even for Carrey? Although maybe this is the beginning of trend for Numerology to become the next big Hollywood religion after Scientology and Kabbalah.